


From here to oblivion

by AvatarofAroha



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 02:00:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13424322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvatarofAroha/pseuds/AvatarofAroha
Summary: A bleak love story, from the inside and the outside.Ties in with my previous work 'Life from Above', which I swear I'll return to one of these days.





	From here to oblivion

Now I wasn't in a good way when the world ended.  
Hell, I ain't been any better since.  
Life never set out to do me any favours, I ain't complaining.  
Some of us were put here to do it rough.  
Seems I got to suffer so others don't have to.  
I can take it.  
I had a shit ton of practise at taking it.  
It's the one thing I know I'm good at.  
Turns out though, all that shit was actually worth something.  
I figured that out finally.  
After I kept on not dying.  
After I kept on losing people, people worth so much more than me.  
Good people.  
I guess the point is, when you've lost everything, right there; that's freedom.  
You ain't got to worry about right and wrong no more.  
You can just be and do what you have to to survive, to keep going.  
Folks will stick with you or they won't.  
They have to choose for themselves.  
I mean, once you start killing people, you can't be taking the moral high ground no more.  
You don't get to be the good guy.  
You just get to be the one to keep on living.  
Some days it meant something.  
That I could protect the group.  
Keep them fed.  
Other days I just wanted to run.  
Run to her.

 

He wants to take her to the sea. He's never seen it before. Just the idea of its vastness scares him.  
But what's the point in running if you go somewhere you've already been.  
He knows she came from over the sea, so he thinks maybe, just maybe, that scent and sound will bring her mind back.  
They have been through hell already, twice over. He feels sure that she's the only humanity he has left.  
He is barely functioning now, this purpose is all that's holding him together.  
He piles her into the truck cab, swings their bags and his crossbow up beside her.  
Starting up the engine, he keeps his eyes forward, fixed on the road as the gate rattles open.  
The group watch him go, saying nothing.  
When the war is over, what good can words do?

Miles and miles without another living soul seen.  
The world is wild again, scars of civilisation hidden under creeping green.  
He checks her again, sees her still vacant, slumped against seat.  
He recalls how her face used to look. Those eyes always tracking him, her Mona Lisa smile just fucking him up.  
How sharp she was, never missing a thing.  
She wasn't good.  
He wasn't good.  
There was no such thing anymore.  
They were survivors.  
That's why they had to leave.

Noone had ever looked at me like she did.  
Always with this amused expression.  
Drove me fucking crazy.  
Nothing I did rattled her, and I fucking tried.  
She never gave a shit about who I was or what I'd done.  
She ran on straight instinct, no judgement.  
It was like having a cat that had decided you were theirs.  
At first I hated it, but like an idiot, I couldnt stay away.  
Supposed to be scouting and such, but I'd end up at her door.  
Then I started to understand.  
It was acceptance she gave me, unconditional.  
She chose me.  
Chose me for her own.

At last the road opened out to the coast.  
Through the backroads and byways they made it.  
She was still on the verge of catatonic.  
He helped her down from the seat clumsily.  
They fell down the bank and onto the sand.  
Arms scraped, teeth jarred.  
A cut opened on her chin, awareness flinted in her eyes.  
A gasp as the panorama registered.  
He held his breath.  
She turned to find him.  
They found each other.  
This time safe.  
This time free.  
Tears fell on the tide line.

First time I saw her I thought I was dreaming.  
Out there in the woods she was, painted to blend in.  
Couldn't rightly tell if she was animal, human or the risen dead.  
Damn near put a bolt through her.  
She asked for my help.  
I aint never been able to refuse a damsel in distress; it'll be the death of me.  
I took her back to the group, she got patched up.  
I wanted her to stay, probably cos of that sense of protectiveness and obligation I aint never managed to shake.  
She wouldn't. Had to get back to the woods. Away from people she said.  
People are the danger; she knew that. Hell so did I. But there I was surrounded by them.  
I guess I'd forgotten who I was; tried to hard to be someone good, someone different.  
She didn't fall for that. She said we were the same.  
A wild thing can't be tamed.  
It'll smash itself against the cage til its free or dead.  
Once I got that it made it so much worse.  
That's when I knew I was fucked.  
That role I'd made for myself; tried so hard to fit into.  
A brother, a leader, a protector.  
It was all over right then.  
Just took me a while to see it is all. 

As waves roll across the tide line she crashes into him.  
Cold hands gripping his clothes, his hair.  
He clutches at her, still grieving her loss, unable to fathom yet the return.  
He thaws, her mouth reviving his heat.  
They press together, hard angles into shifting sand.  
Trembling to unwravel, unwrapping memory and skin.  
Surf and salt tasted in curves and crevices.  
Faces wet, words unspoken.  
Need made flesh.

I never expected it would hit me so hard.  
That need for another person that they wrote all them songs about.  
Thought it was all bullshit til it happened.  
Moving away from her was like trying to swim upstream.  
Just being near her felt like Winter sun on my skin.  
Not looking or touching or speaking, just near.  
I could feel her when she was close, like cats in the window before their owner gets home.  
I craved her, an empty hurt like I was starving.  
Shit kept happening to keep us apart, waves of it, with no breathing time in between.  
Right on the edge of complete chaos in a world gone to the insane.  
And there's me; fighting everything and everyone to get a way clear.  
Up to my neck in blood, guilt and death.  
One goal pushing me on  
Us, together, free.


End file.
